Unhelpful Doctor Answers Your Questions for 54 Straight Minutes | 500k Q&A 

Watch Part 2 of this Q&A exclusively on Nebula! go.nebula.tv/medlifecrisis

4:50 "A doctor's main job is talking to their patients." This hit me since I go through a hyperthyroidism treatment in Germany and talked with couple of doctors. And they all asked me if I have further questions. And when I did, they were really invested in clarifying what's up. I intended to get operated in the city I grew up because I didn't want to be alone while recovering. But I met a surgeon who won my trust by explaining the operation really thoroughly. She received the same operation I am about to get, showed me at the end of our conversation her scar and said: "You'll get a much smaller scar because I'm better than the surgeon who operated me." It might sound arrogant but she said it so matter-of-factly and nonchalantly, I felt safe in her care. I'm generally a rather chilled person but my surgeon's confidence gave me even more reassurance:)

You wouldn't believe the amount of comments I get from irate people (let's be honest, Americans) who are enraged by how I say "med-sin". So for this video I decided to try out saying "med-i-sin". I did not care for it.

On the placebo answer where you used paracetamol as a hypothetical, I've actually been faced with having to give placebo to my grandma instead of paracetamol. She kept taking it every time she "had a cold" when she was still relatively healthy. Eventually we noticed that those colds were just her feeling a bit down so we discouraged it. Then it all snowballed, the "feeling down" was actually alzheimer's, she was taking paracetamol way more frequently than she should, and got extremely aggressive if we refused to buy it for her. So I bought some starch tablets online, put them in empty pill bottles, got some stickers on them, and convinced her that the brand had changed their packaging (meds are usually individually foil packaged here, so I had to use my one bottled medication to prove that they could come in bottles too; unbeknownst to her, those were the exact same bottles I'm using for her "paracetamol"). She still takes them every time she is having a bad day and magically feels better once she does. All is good.

You’re not a failing cardiologist just a failing middle-aged youtuber. Hoping to still be around when you hit 500k chief

This video is so dripping in sarcasm it's basically marinated.

I see 2 different specialists for 2 different health conditions, the medicine necessary to treat Condition A can cause Condition B to get worse, so I keep getting told by one doctor to take it, and by the other doctor to stop taking it. They spoke to each other about it and said they couldn't agree so I should talk about it with my GP and make my own decision. GP says because he isn't a specialist in either field he doesn't feel comfortable advising me, so I should decide for myself. 3 people who have been to medical school leaving this decision to someone who has a Brownie's First Aid Badge and has watched a few episodes of Casualty is insane, and makes me as the patient feel stressed not empowered.

I work in a nursery and it's interesting to see the differences between CPR for children and adults. All my kids act like drunk lobotomised people to begin with, I wouldn't know how to notice a neurological deficit if they survived CPR

Congratulations on the 500k subscribers! I hope you reach it one day!

Re: turn it off and on again - I had a nerve injury from a bad blood draw and my nerve sensitivity lingered for a long long long time. I had to go in for an unrelated surgery, and being under general anesthesia for even 15 minutes erased a majority of that over sensitivity. Wild what turning it off and on again can achieve! I am now living a 99% normal life with only mild occasional reminders that I was injured (for now) EDIT: A surgeon saying "we knew all our patients inside and out," made me giggle more than I think I should have haha

i love how rohin answers questions with sarcasm and disdain and then goes on a 5 min serious diatribe too lol

I recently watched Hannah Fry's BBC documentary on cancer treatment and it raised some questions about informed consent in my head. In one clip we see a doctor discussing chemotherapy with a patient. She goes over possible outcomes, how likely the cancer is to recur with/without chemo, etc. The patient decides to proceed with chemo and when she is interviewed by Hannah Fry after the consultation she says "Well, the doctor said that the cancer is pretty much definitely going to come back if I don't have the chemo", which is not even close to what we had just heard the doctor tell her. Between the obviously emotional and stressful situation and the fact that some of these statistics are quite difficult to get your head around, she was making decisions based on very little understanding of the situation.

The “journal editor” answer to the “garbage collector” question took me a second to process but when it hit I had to pause the video bc I was in stitches laughing 😂 oh that made my day, thank you

Congrats on half a Mil! I definitely need to hear more about the Colonel - that raspberry story was hilarious

Doctors can and do make mistakes. I was diagnosed with emotionally unstable personality disorder. I hadn't heard of this, so I went away and did some research. Whilst I do meet some of the criteria, I discovered that autism is often misdiagnosed as EUPD in women. I asked for a second opinion and, as I suspected, I am actually autistic. That fits me and my experience, which gives me a greater understanding of the struggles I have and why.

"You don't build an audience with normal advice" is the "you don't make friends with salad" of content creators

I always knew rowan Atkinson’s son would become a cardiologist

I had Kawasaki's syndrome when I was around 6 years old. At first they had no idea what was wrong with me. They tested me for lyme disease, all kinds of viral infections and nothing came out of it. Then they sent me into a better hospital in a distant region where they finally (after a week of testing and speculation) found out what was wrong. You are definitely right that individual practitioners do not encounter these diseases. It took a specialist to know what was up. It is a rare condition though and even so rarer at my age. I am glad that kids that have / had / are going to have this after me can get better care. Although I suffer permanent consequences I enjoy the thought that I was a laboratory rat that is going to save others.

My doctor gave me the highest dose possible of an NSAID for chronic joint pain but didn’t really explain anything about it like any potential side effects. Granted, I’m perfectly capable of reading treatment guidelines on my own and researching about the medication on my own. But simply wish they took the time to explain it in the office.I always feel like they don’t have time for me when I’m there.

I watch a lot of different people on youtube I can safely say you are the youtuber I would most want to have a drink down the pub with. Your ability to discuss interesting serious topics while throwing in a big dose of humour is great. People are sometimes funny and sometimes intresting it is great when people are both.

I am so so happy for your positive view that patients looking up on their condition and being a good thing. Personally we experienced certain doctors are super mad about patients looking up their condition online. We suspected my father had Addisons disease because of the variety of tests except for one for Addison was administered to him. 2 yrs we spent going round and round of doctors not finding anything wrong with him but we watched him deteriorate day by day to a twig. We were lucky to find a gentleman of a doctor at the end who finally did all tests again and didn't skip Addison's and he was finally diagnosed and put on right treatment. My father was second patient he came across in his 30+ yr career. And he is writing a whole case report to share with medlcal community now. Forever grateful for this kind of positive attitude towards trying to be cognizant of patients need to learn more about their issues.

23:17 I was talking to my dad, who is a GP, about cancer diagnosis. He said that he sees around 4-6 cancer cases per year of which half are "obvious" and half are "non-obvious". This was in regards to politicians saying that GPs are terrible at diagnosing cancer. Cancer is apparently everywhere and so people assume that it's at least weekly when it isn't even monthly and when it does come around it may be "non-obvious" and it may lead to a wrong diagnosis or a referral - he has admitted that he has given misdiagnosis but he always outlines the observed symptoms and recommends seeing him again if anything changes, so far he hasn't killed anyone (although someone has tried to sue him for a misdiagnosis that was dismissed because none of the symptoms present and the tests conducted suggested cancer and that she didn't see him again after symptoms changed). I just messaged my dad about patients searching their symptoms and he said that it is fantastic because they are informed about what things can be and they are thinking more objectively about their symptoms. He said that he does not take what the patient thinks as a diagnosis, easy job done, but it provides a better method of diagnosing as the patient is an active participent. Edit: after writing the massive block of text below I wondered what he thought about patients who came in asking for a medication rather than a possible diagnosis, as I expected that he dislikes it. He dislikes it because patients come in and when they leave they want to have got a certain medication and they may have been given a different one that does the job but in a better way or that they had skipped over getting an accurate preliminary diagnosis and looking at cures without finding out that they don't have the symptoms of the thing they want to treat. He also mentioned that his encyclopedic knowledge actually makes some patients trust what he says less because they cannot fathom that he knows everything about the mentioned drug and therefore he thinks they think he is making it up. (btw, having a doctor as a dad is amazing although I think I bore him asking him to inspect anything that looks even slightly dodgy. Anything past a spot or if I already know. But he says that it is better to be sure. I'm also fairly sure that he is part book which would make me part book too. He knows what every medication does, dosages, what other names it has, and side effects with rough chances, he knows every medication for a specific ailment too, so the reverse. I have never caught him out even when making up medication names that are similar to existing medications and asking if I meant another. His memory is insane. He is also able to profit free drug merch with it not affecting his judgement because he knows the medications and where this specific drug is compared to others, he just loves getting as much free stuff as he can, as a result I have lots of drug merch (I'm using a trustlocums notebook (not all are drugs) with benecol post-it notes and my trusty viagra pen). I mean, all doctors I know love something that is free, cheap bastards)

21:05 This part had me clapping my hands from laughter. Having one or two weirdos above you in the workplace hierarchy seems to be a universal phenomenon. (I can tell I am slowly becoming one of them. Send help.)

That CABG joke was clever/great lol - congrats on 500k

Speaking of placebos, I have a blister pack of two tablets that is prominently labeled "PLACEBO." I cadged it from my doctor. He went to great lengths to inform me that it doesn't really do anything. He finally let me have it when I explained that I just wanted it as a conversation piece. It currently sits on my curiosity shelf next to the 12 kg block of lead with the "CAUTION RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL" label, the jar of fixative containing one of my second molars, and the photographs the surgeon took of my necrotizing gallbladder. Yeah, I'm weird...

you should be proud. you're the only medical channel I can put on around my wife (med student) or mother-in-law (OR coordinator)

54 minutes went by so fast! I literally laughed out loud many times, I loved this one.

I'll be honest I usually don't care for qna as I don't find them that entertaining... But this... I enjoyed every minute of this so thoroughly... Your stories and answers are so fun I feel like I'm sitting at a camp fire and being told stories by an uncle.

It's interesting how you mention injecting air into an artery as a big fear, and how the bubble will remain in the artery blocking flow. I'm a chemist and we work with high pressure pumps all the time and I've had multiple occasions where I've gotten air into the pump in one way or another, and it's become something I dread as well. Medicine practice and chemical practice seem to have so much in common.

I legit queue up all your q&as and listen to them nonstop. So glad I discovered you! Thank you for being you and educating all of us!

Wanted to pop in and in and say thank you Doc! I'm in a really cruddy point in my life, I have laughed more watching this video then have in over a year. I really needed the laughs. Thank you!

You do a fantastic job finding just the appropriate level of detail for each answer. Great job.

I just want to thank you for recommending the Nebula/Curiosity streaming feed. I have enjoyed it immensely, especially having access to your extended videos. Additionally, I was thrilled to see several other "evidence-based" creators whom I follow on YT posting their content as well. Bravo 👏👏👏

I’ve always loved listening to medical stories. A friend of my brother works in a dementia and elderly people ward and he has stories that range from the hilarious, heartwarming all the way to quite sad. Adam Kay’s this is going to hurt is an amazing read for anyone who found those stories about the Colonel entrancing. I’ve always felt jokes and funny stories from the medical world are quite important. I’m all honesty I sometimes find myself afraid of doctors and have delayed getting myself checked because of it. Listening to Rohin reminds me that everyone there are just people doing their best as well.

Congratulations on 497k subscribers! Here’s to another successful 1840 days on RU-vid!

As 40 year retired family doc, your You Tube site is refreshing, and right on with my experience.

I love your videos sooo much. I look forward to seeing content from you always. Please put out more videos ❤️

More story time please. As a nurse, dark humor appreciated 🙂

Thank you for bringing up resuscitation and informed consent. I agree that the main thing we need to be more comfortable doing is expressing a clinical opinion based on our knowledge of our abilities, presenting pertinent information about clinical realities, without FORCING patients to go one way or another. It’s really hard and an important skill that gets looked over by our current training system. Signed, a palliative care doctor

Congratulations! 497k subscribers! What a milestone!

Been watching since the beginning! So happy for you to hit the milestone you deserve it!

Those Colonel stories were great, I'll need to remember to submit a question about him for the next Q&A

yay! a whole hour of you being you Rohin, AND Q & A, yay, yay, yay - and *congratulations* 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

Love love love these, Rohin you rock, gonna be here for the one million! 🍻

You are a good RU-vidr in the best possible way. Engaging peronality, and giving out good intel.

thank you, very unhelpful! (on a serious note, congratulations :) )

I was on the borderline for statins. As I expressed some reluctance, my doc suggested red yeast rice as an alternative to "Lipitor" (or whatever the generic was). I bought a bottle, went home and checked out things on the internet. Turns out the active ingredient is pretty much the same as "Lipitor" but there is some toxicity. Called the doc, gave him links to the studies. He later thanked me and ceased to recommend it to his patients.

Astonishingly informative, kudos sir.

As a 7 year cancer patient spending so much time in and out of hospitals that I start to feel at home in them, it is a great pleasure to laugh at your sense of humour and hear a relaxed physician discuss your role. So many people complain about our publicly-funded health system and when they do I just shake my head. My medical care has been incredible. I am only grateful.

Excellent, a rare combination of great education and entertainment. Major congratulations on your (almost) 500K achievement. Certainly well-deserved. A couple thoughts: (1) I seldom see anyone discussing the current and future developments in A.I. applications for the medical field. This is such a game-changing evolution I'd love to know where it's headed. I had heard about the superior diagnostic ability of A.I. use in mammography but I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg. Your thoughts and visions would be appreciated. (2) Once you have become Supreme Ruler of the World, I suggest new legislation requiring pharmaceutical companies to devote 20% of their after-tax profits to the study of supplements. Thank you for 54 minutes (actually, more like 2X or 3X that number for entire production) of outstanding info.

congrats on getting 500k subscribers (almost)

Thanks for the subtitles and congrats on the optimistic 500K Q&A. Someday before the sun goes red giant; fingers crossed

Waited until you hit 500k. Congrats!

The names of medication: I got an antihistamin for my pollen allergies that was called Xyzall (so something that is supposed to work against all allergies: X,Y,Z ALLergies which never occured to me until my dentist pronnounced it that way...)

Congrats on your vlog channel getting half a million subs! xx

These videos are a few of my favourite on the platform. I'm not a well educated man, many words here confuse me, but I enjoy the jokes, the educational side, and whatever else I manage to understand.

I don't know why, but there's videos are far more informative than any textbook, I mean the information given here is just pure gold.

Something for all of us to consider...people have great variations in their comprehension of vocabulary which worsens with specialized jargon, medicine being a good example. My mother was being questioned prior to surgery and was asked when she last micturated. I am a word lover but that was at the fringe of my knowledge. After a minute I was able to translate, "She means pee, Mom". Add anxiety and time pressures and it gets worse. Increasingly, in the USA, we are told to have a companion at medical appointments of any importance because so much is missed or misunderstood. Here's to 500,000 more subscribers, you deserve them (and they need you).

Congrats on almost but not quite getting to 500k at the moment. (I'm trying to not say something about about premature celebration, it would just come off as being a double entendre, but it's hard, so very hard)

Here is to the sweet engagement and good luck for the next 3k subs

LOL the intro SHADE. Loving it!

I felt i almost choked on my tea at "Off with her head!"

I really enjoyed your answer about placebos. I've become interested in open-label placebos, and have recently started experimenting (on myself) with using a placebo for some of my breakthrough chronic pain relief. All with my GP's knowledge and encouragement. Not going rogue, lol!

I found channel through suggested content, like the humor of the video, loved the wittiness, heard of the plateau in subscriber, immediately subscribed.

Congratulation on almost 500k subscribers

I wish there was a third option for resuscitation. Resuscitate me, and then if I'm severely disabled afterwards, euthanise me. It's crazy to me that there's so many DNRs, and it's all because our society won't acknowledge that people in these situations should also get to choose (including preemptively). Because that's the route I would choose. Resuscitate me. If it goes well yay! If it doesn't and there's no sign of recovery then just euthanise me. Yes I know there's still going to be in betweens, but my standard would be after being resuscitated and recovery, if I can make it clear I don't want to be euthanasied and can clearly understand that, then the euthanasia is off. Serious. I think we're leaving people with a hard decision and guilt because if they choose a DNR, then they have no idea what might have been. If euthanasia were legal and accepted, we could make a more complex decision.

“Off with her head!” Hahahaha, this one really tickled me

Showing 500K today. Congratulations! 🥳🥳

I've just discovered your channel, great sense of humour!

Congratulations on your 500k subs, Rohin. Live long and prosper.

Congratulations on 498,000 subscribers! Hope you hit 499k one day!

I absolutely need to hear more of those funny workplace stories, I love them

This is the first video ive ever watched of you but thats the best best beard ive ever seen on a human being ever

I’m cleaning out my cellar and this 54min miracle couldn’t have come at a better time 😁

As a radiographer who regularly does coronary angiography and their work ups for cardiologists I agree with the tier list for arteries. Circumflex sucks but I also love the random natural variance of a ramus.

Those two clinician stories were hilarious, thanks :)

on "informed consent", for many people, it turns into "how well do you trust an expert" & "how well do you think the doctor understands the state of current best practices and risks/rewards" (i.e. do you think this particular doctor is actually an expert)

you love to see a fellow frasier fan succeed

Those stories about the Colonel did my an injury. You're a good story teller, impressive impressions.

The "somewhere" at 7:08 is lovely.

As someone who has a condition that almost every doctor I have ever met has referred to as a complicated case. I feel that in some situations shared decision making can be a viable option, after thirty years as far as my own condition goes I think I have earned the right and acquired the knowledge I need to help decide about any treatment plan etc. 💜 Edit.. I can confirm that being surrounded by neurosurgeons and entourage at ward round was intimidating, at first. Until I learned the joy of consultant baiting, then it became quite entertaining.

"... bang on the table and tell them about your killer cabbage dream... they will fast track you... somewhere" This is just... killer funny

3:10 "turning it off and on again" is how we describe the seizure I had a few years ago lol following a concussion I had regular brainweird episodes for... three years? Four years? where I'd get woozy, my vision would go spotty and dark, and I couldn't process what was going on around me or any words. One time I tried to type out what I was experiencing during one, because every time they happened I'd perceive one of like three scenarios but could never remember them afterward, and it was complete gibberish. Anyway I had like five in one day the day of the seizure, got scared, and went to the ER to try to figure out what was wrong and how to stabilize it right? Nurse decided I was a heroine junkie and sent me home, at which point I immediately had the seizure, face first into the litterbox (at least it wasn't the toilet or edge of the tub, I guess?) and woke up in an ambulance. Fun! The brainweird episodes haven't happened ever since, though, so we concluded my brain just needed to reboot.

Congratulations! 🥂

I'm really surprised you don't have millions of subscribers! I asked some of my medicine friends who I play soccer (or as I believe you Brits call it, Wicketball) with if they had heard of you and they hadn't. I would have thought they would all get at least some of your videos on suggestion. What do medical doctors even do in their spare time? Could you recommend me a neurologist because it breaks my brain that you don't have half a million yet.

It's criminal that you only have (just under) 500K subscribers.

congrats! and just a few days ago I saw you entering a pub I was sitting in, now I feel I should have bought you a drink, I promise I'll do it if I see you there again, thanks for all the educational laughs

What an absolute chad. Well deserved!

The newest trend in medicine is ‘shared participation’. The patient stays awake during a procedure and must hand the surgeon the medical instruments. Sometimes, for poorer patients, they are also required to do the closing stitches.

So many nuggets of gold in this Rohin 🤣🤣

Enjoyed. Thanks

I loved the question about informed consent and making decisions together. It's a very important topic. In my experience doctors are so unwilling to get into any real discussions with their patients that they intentionally omit very important facts and seem to hope the patient never asks. The result is that any consent is as far from informed as possible. And sometimes they don't ask for consent at all, simply get nurses to inject medication into the IV fluid bag while the patient is hopefully looking the other way and apparently counting on the patient being too sick to stand up for themselves.

I had to pause the video to laugh about the Colonel. I had my appendix removed three weeks ago and laughing after having that done to me would have been a disaster. 🤣

With all the updates and shorts update making a difference on subs. Still congrats on any.

Congrats on 500K!! Was watching Liverpool game last night and could have sworn that you had scored a hat trick. I'm sure you're as good as Salah. Regards

I AM SO ANNOYED BY THIS VIDEO My sister is about to become a doctor and is the funniest person I know (personally). It is extremely annoying to be around people who are naturally funny AND clever and I am having this yucky envious feeling again watching this video. How very dare you Sir!

Dude I would do Cardiology just to work with you for the rest of my life....because of your teaching style. I feel like all your trainees pass their exams first time.

great video love it

You, Sir, are an excellent science communicator as well as a fine part-time comedian 16:00. Keep up the good work!

My joke about milk is asking why don't they sell human milk in the grocery store? It's actually made for humans so it must be healthier than animal milk. Of course, both are a bad idea for anyone to drink unless they are the child of the mother.